
Class _ L Tif-Sj 

Book — c4r- 

Copyright^ _ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE HERO SERIES 



ABRAHAM 
LINCOLN 



BY 



SAMUEL G. SMITH 




CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & PYE 
NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS 



THF i. IBRARY *F 

CONGRESS, 
Tv»o Cof-icii Receive* 

MAY. 9 1902 

GOPVRieHT ENTRY 

CLASS ^CXXc. NO. 

copy a. 



E> 



COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY 
JENNINGS & hYE 



•• !• I ••• ••• • •• 



Abraham Lincoln 



An Address delivered before the Loyal 
Legion, St. Paid, Minn. 



Abraham Lincoln 



As an epoch of human history becomes 
remote, there is visible to the eyes of those 
who see the figure of some man who is 
recognized as its great embodiment. The 
golden age of Greece is summed up in 
Pericles. Julius Coesar was the supreme 
expression of an age of power and law. 
The great Cromwell interpreted the Eng- 
lish protest against every form of despot- 
ism. At this distance from the sixties and 
that great, sad struggle, it is apparent that 
the colossal form rising above all others is 
the weird figure of Abraham Lincoln. 

Thinkers have set themselves to meas- 
ure and estimate this man. Orators and 
poets have competed in the effort fitly to 
voice his praises. But who and what was 
he? If the statesman must possess con- 
structive genius to frame constitutions, to 
multiply statutes, and to meet emergencies 
with orderly policies, then was the higher 
order of statesmanship denied him. If 
technical knowledge, engineering skill, 
strategic ability, and acquaintance with the 
5 



6 Abraham Lincoln 

management of masses of armed men be 
essential to the soldier, then was he no man 
of war. If it be necessary to the orator 
that he have imagination and passion, our 
hero was no orator, wizard-like though 
the spell was which he laid upon men. 
Born in lowliness too familiar to be de- 
scribed; reared under surroundings only 
to be called civilized by courtesy; denied 
access to schools or libraries, he was cer- 
tainly no scholar. 

In the marvel of what he was not, men 
in the despair of analysis have said, The 
man must have been inspired. He also was 
a prophet of God. But if a prophet must 
needs be a mystic and a seer, one gifted 
to speak the first burning message of new 
truth, then, neither in any religious nor 
in any civil sense was Abraham Lincoln 
an inspired man. 

Seward was the statesman. Grant the 
soldier, Sumner the scholar, Phillips the 
orator, and Garrison was the prophet of 
the new birth of the Nation. 

But who and what was our hero? I 
name him the authentic exponent of his 
generation, the incarnation of the highest 
purposes and activities of his time. 

Homer gathered into himself the heroic 
histories of Greece, and is named the 
world's greatest poet. Michael Angelo, 
master of all arts, became the representa- 



Abraham Lincoln 7 

tive of the world's beauty. Greater than 
these, the Isaiah of the Captivity cried out, 
"Every valley shall "be exalted, and every 
mountain and hill shall be made low;" and 
he is known as the world's prophet of un- 
quenchable hope. But, born on the soil 
of the first free nation of earth, nursed by 
its growth, rocked by its storms, could be 
found, and only here, the incarnation of 
civil and religious liberty; and here was 
born and developed the world's most con- 
spicuous patriot' — Abraham Lincoln. 

He belongs to the school of Kossuth, 
Mazzini, and Garibaldi ; but beyond them 
in heroic mold, and larger still, far be- 
yond them, in the character of the people 
he represented, he yet surpasses them and 
all men of his class in human history, be- 
cause to the patriot's heart he united the 
sagacious judgment of the man of affairs 
and the mighty hand gifted to bear rule. 

The age in which he lived called him, 
the struggles in which he took part fash- 
ioned him, and the Genius of History 
anointed him for the great destiny to which 
he was called. It is not in sowing and in 
reaping, nor in the making of crowded 
cities, nor in ships floating a vast com- 
merce on the seas, that a nation grows 
great. It is by her passions and emotions, 
her conflicts and her sorrows, that she 
learns the way to achievement. It was 



8 Abraham Lincoln 

after the fair-haired Greeks had flung back 
the uncounted thousands of Persians, set- 
tling forever the seat of power in the Occi- 
dent, that Athens gave birth to her states- 
men and philosophers, her artists and her 
poets. It was after France had been 
shaken by the storm of her revolution — 
''Truth clad in hell-fire" — that she overran 
Europe under the first Xapoleon. So it 
was the birth-time of greatness when 
America was torn for thirty years by the 
death struggle of two opposing forces — a 
struggle that found its way, not only into 
the halls of legislation and the busy seats 
of trade, but into the remotest hut on the 
frontier, and shook with the noise of strife 
even the solitudes of the prairies and the 
mountains. Then it was as the expression 
of the Nation's agony and victory, that 
Abraham Lincoln walked forth among men, 
the miracle of the nineteenth century. 

The best foundation of greatness is a 
certain sensitiveness of soul. By it the 
poet receives the beauty of his world, and 
perceives the dramatic quality of human 
action. It is the same power by which the 
mathematician is impressed by numbers 
and relations; and the saint has imprinted 
upon him the austere beauty of holiness. 
Neither poet nor mathematician nor saint, 
Abraham Lincoln was the sharer with 
them of this wonderful power of the 



Abraham Lincoln 9 

sensitive soul. But neither beauty nor 
virtue in the abstract moved him; his na- 
ture was open only to the touch of human 
life. It was this strength of his that made 
him the ready prey of the tears of woman 
and the sorrows of any little child; but it 
was the power by which he was able to 
receive impressions of men and understand 
them; to comprehend the motives of the 
human soul, and to predict human action; 
and to interpret not one class alone, but 
all classes of society. Above all men of 
his time, he knew what was in man. It 
was this quality which manifested itself in 
his grotesque humor and grim pathos. 
Human life is both a tragedy and a com- 
edy; he felt it in its completeness. But 
mirth and melancholy are twins, light and 
dark, that are cradled in every great soul. 
It was so with Mirabeau, with Caesar, with 
Shakespeare, with Abraham Lincoln. In 
his later years his humor was not a joy, 
but a weapon. Men saw a flash of light, 
and only knew it had been a sword when 
some falsehood lay pierced at his feet. 

In the growth of his years he passed 
through clarifying processes, which ex- 
alted his receptive power to great uses, and 
made him the embodiment of all the better 
forces of the Nation's life and experience. 
But he was always a natural leader of men. 
He embodied every condition in which he 



io Abraham Lincoln 

was placed, and his companions, of what- 
ever sort they were, recognized his power, 
and owned his mastery. This was equally 
true when he wrestled with the boys in the 
backwoods at Geary's Grove, and when 
he strove successfully with statesmen and 
diplomats at the Nation's Capital. It is a 
mistake to speak of Abraham Lincoln as 
ever having been an obscure man. He 
may have been obscure from the provincial 
point of view of Boston or New York ; 
but he was never obscure. Whether in 
the woods of Indiana, or on the still ruder 
frontier by the banks of the Sangamon ; 
whether keeping store in New Salem, head- 
ing the "Long Nine" in the Legislature 
at Vandalia, riding the circuit with his fel- 
low lawyers, or on the stump in political 
campaigns, he was never obscure. He was 
always a leader. He was as great as his 
situation, and this was as true of him in 
Illinois as it was in Washington. He lived 
under a constantly-widening horoscope. 
He sprang full-armed to meet his career. 
His life was a constant evolution and mani- 
festation of inherent greatness. 

The first glimpse of him in public life 
certainly shows him only as a possibility. 
He is not far the other side of twenty, and 
he has nominated himself for the Legis- 
lature. To start the campaign he goes to 
Pappsville for a political meeting. As a 



Abraham Lincoln n 

mere incident he takes hold of the most 
stalwart of several rude fellows who are 
trying to make a disturbance, and literally 
hurls him twelve feet. At length he has 
a chance to speak. There he stands, six 
feet four inches in his stockings, with the 
longest arms and legs imaginable on a man. 
The future chief figure of his century cer- 
tainly makes a most singular appearance. 
Look at him. He wears a mixed jeans 
coat, claw-hammer style, but so short that 
he can not sit on it. He has on tow-linen 
pantaloons, also six inches too short, but 
showing his indigo blue stockings to ad- 
vantage, which terminate in indescribable 
low shoes. He wears no vest, has on one 
suspender, carries a straw hat something the 
worse for wear, and proceeds to make his 
maiden speech. Now listen : 

"Fellow-citizens, — I presume you all 
know who I am. I am humble Abraham 
Lincoln. I have been solicited by my 
friends to become a candidate for the Legis- 
lature. My politics are short and sweet, 
like the old woman's dance. I am in favor 
of a national bank. I am in favor of an 
internal improvement system and a high 
protective tariff. These are my sentiments. 
If elected, I shall be thankful; if not, it 
will be all the same." 

The report of the speech may or may 
not be exact. It is, no doubt, sufficiently 



12 Abraham Lincoln 

so to enable us to have a fair picture of 
his entrance into public life. From such 
a rude beginning he became one of the 
most effective speakers who ever addressed 
American audiences on political subjects. 

But at a very early period he showed 
signs of his coming greatness. When again 
a candidate for the Legislature, he was 
replied to by a Mr. Forquer, who said it 
was his duty to "take the young man 
down." Never was biter bit after a severer 
fashion. This Mr. Forquer had changed 
his politics a short time before, and almost 
immediately was appointed register of the 
land-office. He then proceeded to build 
a good house, and protected it with the 
onlv lightning-rod known in Springfield. 
When Mr. Forquer was through, Lincoln 
rose in reply, closing with these words: 

"I desire to live, and I am ambitious for 
place; but I would rather die now than, 
like the gentleman, live to see the day when 
I would change my politics for an office 
worth three thousand dollars a year, and 
then feel compelled to erect a lightning- 
rod to protect a guilty conscience from an 
offended God." 

Of course, Mr. Forquer and his light- 
ning-rod had achieved immortality in that 
neighborhood. 

It was at the Legislature in 1834 that 
Abraham Lincoln, for the first time, met 



Abraham Lincoln 13 

Stephen A. Douglas. No record is left us 
of the first impressions which each made 
upon the other — the antithesis of each 
other in almost every point of personal and 
social character and position. For nearly 
thirty years they were conspicuous rivals; 
and among the many forces that operated 
powerfully to stimulate Mr. Lincoln, there 
was perhaps none second to the great brain 
and sturdy strength of his remarkable an- 
tagonist. 

But the years have gone by. Lincoln 
has achieved personal and political distinc- 
tion. He has had a look at Washington 
during two years as congressman. At last 
his clear vision has come to recognize dis- 
tinctly the nature of the crisis that threat- 
ens the Nation. By general consent he 
is recognized as the leader of the Repub- 
lican party in the State of Illinois; and, 
though defeated for the Senate in 1855 by 
Lyman Trumbull, no other candidate is 
suggested in the next contest with Stephen 
A. Douglas. There is an immense dis- 
tance between the first speech of his 
career and the speech in Springfield to the 
Convention which named him as standard- 
bearer in the memorable struggle for a 
seat in the United States Senate. That 
speech is familiar to you all, and that par- 
agraph which is said to have defeated him 
for senator, only to have elected him Pres- 



14 Abraham Lincoln 

ident, was the utterance not only of a clear 
vision, but of a strong soul. 

"A house divided against itself can not 
stand. I believe this Government can not 
permanently endure half slave and half free. 
I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. 
I do not expect the house to fall, but I do 
expect it will cease to be divided. It will 
become all one thing or all the other." 

But the most noteworthy scene was not 
the meeting of the Convention where this 
speech was delivered ; it was in that far 
more significant gathering held the night 
before in the library of the State-house, 
where, in a little conference, the nature of 
which is well known to men in practical 
politics, he read his speech to a dozen per- 
sonal and political friends, and asked their 
judgment upon its wisdom. When he fin- 
ished reading that important and immortal 
paragraph, one cf them is said to have re- 
marked with a great deal more emphasis 
than polish, "That is a damn-fool utter- 
ance;" and this was a terse and irreverent 
expression of the sentiments of the confer- 
ence. But this was a time when the chil- 
dren of this world were not so wise in their 
generation as the child of light. In wrath 
the man rose like a great colossus above 
them all, and said : 

"Gentlemen, the time has come when 
these sentiments should be uttered; and if 



Abraham Lincoln 15 

it be decreed that I go down because of 
this speech, then let me go down linked 
to the truth ; let me die in the advocacy of 
what is just and right." 

In those words spoke the warrior, the 
martyr, and the saint. 

The most conspicuous faculties by 
which Mr. Lincoln brought his fine and 
capacious nature into the service of life 
were his conscience and his judgment. 
These are the most important organs in 
the structure of every soul. His moral 
consciousness was as clear and undoubted 
as his intellectual perceptions were just 
and sane. As a lawyer he could make no 
success of a case in which he did not be- 
lieve, though it might have strong legal 
grounds. On the other hand, if the case 
engaged his moral sense, though the law 
might be against him, his tremendous 
force often overpowered both judge and 
jury, and secured the verdict. The same 
thing was true of him in his political 
speeches. He must believe intensely the 
doctrines of the campaign, or he could not 
proclaim them. He was not so versatile 
as his rivals, and he made a strange figure 
on the American platform. Truth, justice, 
righteousness, were too masterful for him; 
he could never be merely the servant of 
the hour. But it was because of this 
higher obedience that he was able to be- 



16 Abraham Lincoln 

lieve implicitly in himself, and was able to 
compel at last the abiding faith of the 
American people. Once again it would ap- 
pear that the child of light has a wisdom 
of his own. 

AYas Air. Lincoln a Christian? Many 
words and some bitterness have attended 
the discussion of the question. Judged by 
merely dogmatic or even conventional 
standards, he certainly never was. But if, 
to be a Christian, a man must believe with 
all his soul that there is a God who made 
and rules the world; that a sense of duty 
is the supremest law for every human soul; 
that only in obedience to that law can any 
cause finally succeed; that sacrifice and 
self-sacrifice are not too dear a price to 
pay for truth and righteousness, then, to 
the depths of his great soul, was Air. Lin- 
coln a Christian man. His religious con- 
viction deepened and widened as the years 
went by until its expression reached the 
climax in that matchless passage of the 
second inaugural, where he says: 

"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we 
pray that this mighty scourge of war may 
speedily pass away ; yet if God wills that 
it continue until all the wealth piled up by 
the bondman's two hundred and fifty years 
of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until 
every drop of blood drawn with the lash 
shall be paid by another drawn with the 



Abraham Lincoln 17 

sword, as was said three thousand years 
ago, so still it must be said, 'The judgments 
of the Lord are true and righteous alto- 
gether/ " 

Either Abraham Lincoln was the most 
skillful theatrical performer on any political 
stage, and even a greater rhetorician than 
he was an actor, or these words confess 
a consciousness of the providence of God 
as profound as that of Job or Paul. 

In addition to an irresistible conscience 
he had, also, a powerful and sagacious 
judgment. His conscience taught him to 
be true to what is eternally right ; his judg- 
ment bade him consider what is immedi- 
ately and practically possible. Judgment 
and conscience were the two reins by which 
he drove his chariot of power along the 
highway of greatness. Here is the key to 
his apparent hesitation in the emancipation 
of the colored race. As he understood it, 
it was a war for the Union, and not for 
emancipation. He hated slavery with an 
everlasting hatred; but he was also the re- 
sponsible leader of a great people. He 
was one of those masters of men who feel 
the responsibilities of power in a deeper 
way than the privileges of power. He says 
in a letter on the subject to A. G. Hodges: 

"It was in the oath which I took that 
I would, to the best of my ability, preserve, 
protect, and defend the Constitution of the 



i8 Abraham Lincoln 

United States. I could not take the office 
without taking the oath, nor was it my 
view that I might take the oath to get 
power, and break the oath in using the 
power." 

Here is a lesson that many of the chil- 
dren of this world might learn from tha 
wisdom of the child of light. But the de- 
lay was not alone a matter of conscience, 
it was a question of judgment as well. 

Better than all the fiery sons of Massa- 
chusetts he understood the dangers that 
lay in the border States of Kentucky, 
Maryland, and Missouri. He waited until 
victories in the field could control the 
bonier States, until the rising tide of 
opinion rolled with resistless power in 
the Northern States, and when at length 
the necessities of the struggle, the condi- 
tions of public opinion, and his high sense 
of duty combined to bring conscience and 
judgment into harmonious action, he knew 
that the hour of Cod had struck; and with 
the pen of emancipation he touched the 
fetters of the slave, and in the clangor of 
their falling was heard the psalm of the 
Nation and the music of the world. 

In all the wide domain of affairs Mr. 
Lincoln made the practical application of 
a few great truths bring him decision. His 
philosophy of history was a faith in the 
providence of God. His political sagacity 



Abraham Lincoln 19 

and foresight was his faith that the masses 
of the American people could, in the final 
judgment of any great question, be fully 
trusted to be faithful to the right, as it 
should be given them to see the right. 
These foundations enabled him to surpass 
in practical power many men of wider ex- 
perience and greater knowledge. So it 
came to pass that in intellectual activity 
he was not so much a man of processes 
as he was the child of vision. He was not 
a logician in the ordinary sense, yet his 
statements are often both illustrations and 
arguments. Speaking of the labor ques- 
tion he says shrewdly, "I always thought 
that the man who makes the corn should 
eat the corn." 

And, in spite of economics, the plain 
wisdom of the plain man seems to be the 
last word that may properly be said. 

Scan his life, and see how this great 
man grew. He comes from the woods of 
Indiana to the banks of the Sangamon, 
from the flatboats of the Mississippi to the 
store in New Salem, from surveying to 
law, from the politics of a county to 
the management of a State, from the chief- 
tainship of a political party to the Chief 
Magistracy of a great Nation in the throes 
of a supreme struggle for its life. Heavier 
and heavier burdens were laid upon him 
year by year. He lifted them, and he 



20 Abraham Lincoln 

grew under them. In every place he was 
the master of all men. Shrewd politician 
may he have been, but great savior of the 
Nation did he become. He may have be- 
gan as a sage, but he ended as a saint. 
He himself ripened while he toiled and 
suffered. He was, indeed, the lonely and 
sorrowing servant of the Nation. The iron 
entered his soul, and broke his body. The 
storm plowed furrows in his face, and his 
shoulders were bent under the burdens that 
he bore. Horace Greeley, after seeing 
him, said he could not live through his 
second term as President. Such are still 
the pains of redemption. 

The birds of prey, hungry for the Na- 
tion's life, plunged beak and claw into his 
bosom. He flinched not, nor faltered; 
again and again he beat them back; 
there he stood until the skies cleared, un- 
til peace touched the land with her beauty, 
and liberty claimed for her own every 
man, woman, and child from sea to sea. 
See him complete at last, our Nation's 
hero, victor over poverty, isolation, hered- 
ity, environment, ignorance, difficulties 
unutterable, and whatever enemies may 
perplex a human life. There he stands! 
Calm, valiant, victorious, a mighty man. 
Nor is this all. He was, most of all, a 
historic man, strangely called and devel- 



Abraham Lincoln 21 

oped under the providence of God to be the 
foremost exponent of the human passion 
for liberty in all ages. 

And what think you? When the bullet 
of a half-crazed assassin in abject folly 
struck down this man unto his death, 
think you that he perished forever from 
God's universe? Think you that a life de- 
veloped by such labors and sorrows was 
of no more worth than to mingle with the 
unthinking dust from whence it sprang? 
I can not believe it. I can not believe 
that nature, so difficult in her processes, 
and so parsimonious of her materials, 
should end at last in the destruction of a 
scul which most amply fulfills her noblest 
aims. How abject a denouement which 
would rob the drama of life of all unity 
and purpose ! 

No, this man was immortal, and with the 
mighty spirits of all time he rose out of 
his pain and warfare to the serene thrones 
of the universe, where the sons of God live 
on forever and forever. 

And not only Abraham Lincoln, but the 
company of all our sainted and heroic 
dead crowd thick upon our memory. 
They fill the air about us. They are, in- 
deed, a cloud of witnesses urging us to 
take up their tasks and complete their tri- 
umphs. Let me close, therefore, with the 



22 Abraham Lincoln 

words of our Nation's greatest soul re- 
maining for us as a perpetual inspiration: 
"It is rather for us to be here dedicated 
to the great task remaining before us, that 
from these honored dead we take in- 
creased devotion to the cause for which 
they here gave their last full measure of 
devotion; that we here highly resolve that 
the dead shall not have died in vain; that 
the Nation shall, under God, have a new 
birth of freedom, and that government of 
the people, by the people, and for the 
people shall not perish from the earth." 

LofC 



Words of Lincoln 



Words of Lincoln 

"Come what will, I will keep my faith 
with friend and foe." 

"I do not impugn the motives of any one 
opposed to me." 

"It is no pleasure to me to triumph over 
any one." 

"I shall do my utmost, that whoever is 
to hold the helm for the next voyage shall 
start with the best possible chance to save 
the ship." 

"I have not willingly planted a thorn in 
any man's bosom." 

"My early history is perfectly character- 
ized by a single line of Gray's Elegy : 

'The short and simple annals of the poor.' " 

"Men are not nattered by being shown 
that there has been a difference of purpose 
between them and the Almighty." 

25 



26 Words of Lincoln 

"I know that the Lord is always on the 
side of the right. But it is my constant 
anxiety and prayer that I and this Nation 
should be on the Lord's side." 

"I have been driven many times to my 
knees by the overwhelming- conviction that 
I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom, 
and that of all about me, seemed insufficient 
for that day." 

"We can not escape history." 

" The purposes of the Almighty are per- 
fect, and must prevail, though we erring 
mortals may fail to accurately perceive them 
in advance." 

u God must like common people, or he 
would not have made so many of them." 

" Of the people, when they rise in mass 
in behalf of the Union and the liberties of 
their country, truly may it be said: 'The 
gates of hell can not prevail against them.' " 

"Unless the great God . . . shall 
be with and aid me, I must fail ; but if the 
same Omniscient Mind and Almighty Arm 
. . . shall guide and support me, I shall 
not fail; I shall succeed." 

" I authorize no bargains [for the Presi- 
dency], and will be bound by none." 



Words of Lincoln 27 

"The reasonable man has long since 
agreed that intemperence is one of the great- 
est, if not the greatest, of all evils among 
mankind." 

"I am indeed very grateful to the brave 
men who have been struggling with the 
enemy in the field." 

"For thirty years I have been a temper- 
ance man, and I am too old to change." 

"That we here highly resolve that 
. . . this Nation, under God, shall have 
a new birth of freedom, and that the Govern- 
ment of the people, by the people, and for 
the people, shall not perish from the earth." 

" I appeal to you again to constantly bear 
in mind that with you [the people], and not 
with politicians, not with Presidents, not 
with office-seekers, but with you, is the 
question, Shall the Union and shall the lib- 
erties of the country be preserved to the 
latest generation?" 

" If all that has been said by orators and 
poets since the creation of the world in praise 
of women were applied to the women of 
America, it would not do them full justice 
for their conduct during the war. . . . 
God bless the women of America !" 

"With malice toward none, with charity 
for all, with firmness in the right, as God 



28 Words of Lincoln 

gives us to see the right, let us strive on to 
finish the work we are in ; to bind up the 
Nation's wounds ; to care for him who shall 
have borne the battle, and for his widow and 
his orphan — to do all which may achieve 
and cherish a just and lasting peace among 
ourselves and with all nations." 

"This country, with its institutions, be- 
longs to the people who inhabit it." 

" I have never had a feeling politically 
that did not spring from the sentiments em- 
bodied in the Declaration of Independence." 

u No men living are more worthy to be 
trusted than those who toil up from poverty 
— none less inclined to take or touch aught 
which they have not honestly earned. 1 ' 

"Let us have faith that right makes 
might ; and, in that faith, let us to the end 
dare to do our duty as we understand it." 

"There is no grievance that is a fit ob- 
ject of redress by mob law." 

"Many great and good men, sufficiently 
qualified for any task they may undertake, 
may ever be found, whose ambition would 
aspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, 
a gubernatorial, or a Presidential chair; but 
such belong not to the family of the lion or 
the tribe of the eagle." 



Words of Lincoln 29 

"Nowhere in the world is presented a 
Government of so much liberty and equal- 
ity." 

"Gold is good in its place; but living, 
brave, and patriotic men are better than 
gold." 

" Let none falter who thinks he is right." 

"All that I am, all that I hope to be, I 
owe to my angel mother." 

" The way for a young man to rise is to 
improve himself every way he can, never 
suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder 
him." 

"Suspicion and jealousy never did help 
any man in any situation." 

" Every man is said to have his peculiar 
ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can 
say, for one, that I have no other so great 
as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow- 
men, by rendering myself worthy of their 
esteem." 

"Slavery is founded in the selfishness of 
man's nature — opposition to it in his love 
of justice." 

"Stand with anybody that stands right. 
Stand with him while he is right, and part 
with him when he goes wrong." 

"Revolutionize through the ballot-box." 



30 Words of Lincoln 

u If I live, this accursed system of rob- 
bery and shame in our treatment of the 
Indians shall be reformed." 

"This Government must be preserved in 
spite of the acts of any man, or set of men." 

"Many free countries have lost their 
liberty, and ours may lose hers; but, if she 
shall, be it my proudest plume, not that I 
was the last to desert, but that I never de- 
serted her." 

"Any people, anywhere, being inclined 
and having the power, have the right to 
rise up and shake <>li the existing Govern- 
ment, and form a new one that .suits them 
better. This is a most valuable and sacred 
right — a right which, we hope and believe, 
is to liberate the world." 

"At what point shall we expect the ap- 
proach of danger? Shall we expect some 
transatlantic military giant to step the ocean 
and crush us at a blow? Never! All the 
armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa com- 
bined, with all the treasures of the earth 
(our own excepted) in their military chest, 
with a Bonaparte for a commander, could 
not, by force, take a drink from the Ohio, 
or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a 
trial of a thousand years. At what point, 
then, is this approach of danger to be ex- 



Words of Lincoln 31 

pected? I answer, If it ever reach us, it 
must spring up amongst us. It can not 
come from abroad. If destruction be our 
lot, we must ourselves be its author and 
finisher. As a Nation of freemen, we must 
live through all time or die by suicide." 

" Passion has helped us [to preserve our 
free institutions], but can do so no more. 
It will in future be our enemy. Reason — 
cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason — 
must furnish all the materials for our sup- 
port and defense. Let those materials be 
molded into general intelligence, sound 
morality, and, in particular, a reverence for 
the Constitution and the laws; and then 
our country shall continue to improve, and 
our Nation, revering his name, and permit- 
ting no hostile foot to pass or desecrate his 
resting-place, shall be that to hear the last 
trump that shall awaken our Washington. 
Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom 
rest as the rock of its basis, and as truly as 
has been said of the only greater institution, 
4 The gates of hell shall not prevail against 
it.' " 




Retribution, and Other Addresses, J 

Bj Samuel < '.. South, 
and the"WbRDS 01 I are taken froi 

Abraham Lincoln, 
\'.y 1 ». 1'. 1 bompson. 



RETRIBUTION 

AND OTHER ADDRESSES 

By SAMUEL G. SMITH, D. D., LL. D. 



CONTENTS 



Retribution. An address delivered before the Wes- 
ley Guild, University of Michigan. 

The New Unities. President's address to the Pan- 
American Congress of Religion and Education, Toronto. 

Modern Problems. President's address to the 
Civic-Philanthropic Conference, Battle Creek, Mich. 

Economics and Crime. An address delivered 
before the National Prison Association, Milwaukee, Wis. 

The University Settlement. An address de- 
livered before the Settlement Association, Northwest- 
ern University, Evanston, 111. 

Abraham Lincoln. An address delivered before 
the Loyal Legion, St. Paul, Minn. 



Characterized by breadth of view, a wide suggestiveness, 
and a literary style that rises at times to noble eloquence.— The 
Outlook. 

Thoughtful and solid addresses which invite the reader to 
think deeply and seriously on important themes. — The Advance. 



!2mo. 



Cloth extra. 152 pages. Gilt top. Price, $1.00 



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ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

THE FIRST AMERICAN 

= By D. D. THOMPSON == 



WHAT IS SAID OF IT 



Surely no person can read this book without gathering 
a fair knowledge of those great characteristics which made 
Mr. Lincoln loved as well as honored. — Public Opinion. 

With true editorial instinct, Mr. Thompson has culled 
the most interesting and instructive points from Lincoln's 
eventful career, and put them in the most tempting 
form — Chicago Evening Journal. 

It is made up of anecdotes and incidents, presenting 
various phases of this marvelous character. It is at once 
a unique and valuable book. It affords a deal of healthful 
diet for young American citizens. — Cincinnati Times- Star. 

It brings out the great lessons of Lincoln's life in such 
a way that the reader can not help seeing them, though 
often he will have the pleasant impression that he is dis- 
covering them for himself. — Young Men's Era. 



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of safety for his race and country -when he lived and led. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

ANDTHEMENOFHISTIME 

By ROBERT H. BROWNE 



THIS extraordinary book gives us a splendid portrait 
of America's Great Commoner. It portrays his 
character, and shows us in a clear light the forces 
and events which tended to the development of his re- 
markable personality. At the same time it brings us into 
touch with the men' who, with Lincoln, formed the cast 
in the great drama that reached its climax in the Rebellion. 



Dr. Browne has added two volumes to the real classics of 
the Republic.— Wichita Daily Beacon. 

; to take its place with the few great standard biog- 
raphies.— // 'cstcrn Christian Advocate. 

It is a very readable book ; the style is entertaining, the 
language choice and clean.— Kirhsville Mo.) Journal. 

The work is analytical, penetrating, and exhaustive.— Chat- 
News. 



Specifications. Cloth. 1283 pages O Vl^ frl CA 
Gilt top. With portraits. Boxed. L VUlO. *J>J.JV 



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Ji series of exquisite little booklets of high lit* 
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bound in exceedingly dainty but durable cloth 
bindings, stamped in white and gold, and beau* 
tifully printed on fine paper. ••••••• 

Price etch, 25 cents net. Postage, 3 cents. 



1. A HERO— JEAN VAUEAN, - By William A. Quayle 

" Fine analysis, elegant diction, and faithful portraiture 
are here." '43 pages. Frontispiece— " Jean Valjean." 

2. THE TYPICAL AMERICAN, - By Charles Edward Locke 

"A breath of inspiration." "Replete with interest." 28 
pages. Frontispiece— " Washington and his Family at 

11 me." 

3. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, --• By Samuel G. Smith 

•A literary style that rises at times to noble eloquence." 
32 pages. 'Frontispiece— Statue of the Great Emancipator. 

4. THE GENTLEMAN IN LITERATURE, 

By William A. Quayle 

"Abounding in flashes of brilliant criticism and tokens ot 
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5. A NINETEENTH-CENTURY CRUSADER, 

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CINCINNATI: JENNINGS (®L PYE 
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